lore-and-universe

[orchid kettle]

I do feel like in a setting that perhaps had a better sense of organized crime existing outside of rebel activities, them being smugglers and not rebels themselves would feel like a stronger possibility

or at least, the distinction would feel more meaningful

I've never been super big on star wars myself but I have been jealous of how like the criminal underworld is like this third faction somewhat separated from the empire/rebels or republic/separatists

[dusk jetty]

It has its own power struggles that, do correlate with the wider galaxy, are also largely independent

[stoic hamlet]

Despite having a lot of lore, Halo’s universe really can feel very surface level, at times.

You can tell where it’s not really focused. The criminal underworld stuff is a good example.

[orchid kettle]

We're kinda getting there with corpo shenanigans showing up more often

[modest marsh]

You might say that halo studios is rightfully concerned about making itself too similar to other settings

[orchid kettle]

and I guess those slavers from Empty Throne aren't really hinted to be rebels or anything

[orchid kettle]

on some level I understand that

but in exchange I'd like it if we did have more JOZ stories

because if nothing else I do think a core pillar of Halo's identity is humanity's relationship with the aliens

I certainly don't need bounty hunters or independent assassins imo

the megacorp stuff I think is scratching that itch without feeling like the same thing

[stoic hamlet]

Though I find some of the decisions really odd I’ll always appreciate how Foxhole’s devs and lore peeps make all the supplemental lore almost entirely avoid the actual game, with a clear anti-war message by focusing on the seedier parts of militaries and a total war economy, including the black markets that develop therein.

The game’s tech being very interwar period helps, though

Different style and game, of course.

But you know, it’s a neat contrast, when compared to Halo kind of turning a blind eye until recent years.

[dusk jetty]

I don’t think it’s necessarily turned a blind eye to acknowledging the reality of its medium but it’s become more overt

It doesn’t lack substance per se but that substance is getting thinner

FPS fans are generally also not very attentive to these things

Talk to an average fallout fan sometime and you’ll see what I mean

[stoic hamlet]

In terms of substance I mean stuff not directly related to the games. In that sense, yeah, Halo’s universe is deep as a puddle.

But yeah, as an FPS, Halo doesn’t really attract the most attentive or interested fans in the deep lore stuff.

[lament karma]

HALO STUDIOS! Give us Endless lore and my life is yours!

[vagrant ocean]

I just want some more deep lore on the UNSC’s origins and history. The Covies got an origin story in Mythos, let the UNSC get one

[modest marsh]

We know the broadstrokes at least

[soft vault]

Does the Halo Legends story, Origins 2, count even a little bit towards the UNSC lore?

[vagrant ocean]

Not really.

[soft vault]

Fair

[vagrant ocean]

It wasn’t really discussed.

Just broad strokes

[soft vault]

True. I remember the odd thing mentioned about the UNSC in Fall of Reach

[vagrant ocean]

The UNSC’s origins date back to the 22nd century

[soft vault]

Admittedly I know squat about ONI

[vagrant ocean]

Basically the CIA

[soft vault]

Gotcha

[vagrant ocean]

But somehow more evil

[soft vault]

There's competion for funding in the UNSC. I know that much cus there was a bit in Fall of Reach where Chief and Cortana, in their first test together, get unfairly outnumbered and outgunned cus the guy involved with stocking it went overboard to get the trial to fail so his projects would get more funding cus Halsey's onboard AI thing didn't work out after finally getting the green light to give the Spartans the Mjolnir armour that support it.
Didn't go well for the guy.
Cortana basically doxxed him as revenge in the millisecond she was familiarising herself with the Autumn for the first time

I mean... it was retconned by Halo Reach cus Cortana first meets Chief onboard the Autumn after Noble Siz succesfully delivers her

So that trial didn't happen.
But I choose to believe that glimpse into the military market ecosystem is still there

[stoic hamlet]

No the CIA are still more evil, lol.

[vagrant ocean]

Eh, the CIA (to my knowledge) hasn’t kidnapped children to turn them into super soldiers or tried to turn a universe ending plague into a bioweapon

[carmine sleet]

However evil you think the CIA is, they're definitely more evil than that

Like, the guys at MK Ultra were doing all sorts of stuff, including using their funding to do things they shouldn't have been doing like dart guns to kill trees and spiking punch bowls at FBI gatherings

[stoic hamlet]

Also they actually collapsed governments.

For all their evil stuff, ONI’s never actually even attempted regime change.

[carmine sleet]

That too

I just really wanted to bring up the dumb dart gun

[stoic hamlet]

Don’t forget the cats.

Or was that the KGB?

[lament karma]

Extremely comically evil government spooky people

[vagrant ocean]

Prolly KGB.

[stoic hamlet]

Nope, CIA

[soft vault]

Lmao

[blazing ivy]

ONI is good and hasn't done anything wrong or sketchy. What would you like to order from this Space Wendy's that is totally not a money laundering front for ONI.

[analog hatch]

ONI is supposedly akin to a shadow government, allegedly

[blazing ivy]

Nuh uh. I would ne- I mean, they would never do that.

[soft vault]

Great. You mentioned a fast food chain and a sketchy government organisation in the same sentence.
You've cursed me with listening to "There's A McDonald's In The Pentagon" on loop until I forget it next.
Curse You General Association!

[blazing ivy]

Lol

[soft vault]

(Banger song though. Highly recommend the Shayling music video for it)

[minor sky]

I think it has enough historical prescient for it to work in Halo's canon. Especially in the context of the gap between Earth and Mars colonists

[minor sky]

Wealth disparity tends to create an atmostphere for these sorts of movements and counter-movements

[lament karma]

Hi, can I get a chocolate frosty, Space Wendy’s?

[empty bloom]

The real world CIA would eagerly do that in a heartbeat if one existed.

Such as the whole MK Ultra thing.

[supple harness]

Who would kidnap children? That would be unethical.

[lament karma]

Ahem It was the Innies I swear cough

[vagrant ocean]

I mean, the Innies do hire Janissaries in the post war era, and we all know how those are made.

[frigid heart]

Where do they come from? Aren’t they just unsanctioned spartan knockoffs made by the insurrectionists?

[minor sky]

Don't some corporations have a hand in them?

[modest marsh]

It’s more complicated than that

[frigid heart]

I figured

[modest marsh]

There are many factions and groups that have a vested interest in acquiring their equivalent super soldiers

Janissary has become the predominant term to describe an umbrella of augmented super soldiers that have generally been, through force, put into indentured servitude to loan out their abilities and pay off a debt

I think it’s more so being a catchall colloquialism for “illegal knockoff Spartan”, but the original meaning stems from this idea of merc slaves

From what we know, most if not all Janissaries are developed on Venezia by independent elements that then sell their services to groups like the Banished and potentially rebels

We don’t actually know if they’re affiliated with any rebel group unless you count the NCA being a collaborator with the Banished

[frigid heart]

Interesting
Thanks for the info!

[modest marsh]

And yeah optican, the big healthcare corporation featured in ODST, is doing illegal dealings on the side to help facilitate this

[minor sky]

Yeah, didn't their CEO kind of lose his mind after the Created debacle

[modest marsh]

I don’t think the desire to democratize augmentation protocols to level the playing field a bit is inherently immoral

The problem is that actually effectuating this is essentially impossible to navigate in the current environment

Well, ethically anyways

The augmentations they’ve developed are a crude imitation of the Spartan protocols, because the fact of the matter is that not everyone is cut out to be sliced open and having their organs rearranged and it takes an extreme level of care to do this consistently without complications

Most groups do not have the knowledge pool or resources that the UNSC does, not by a long shot

There’s also the fact that, on the whole, it doesn’t seem like they can guarantee equipment that is at-parity with what Spartans have access to, so arguably the need to make even more extreme alterations to the subject is needed than what would typically be allowed for Spartans at the cost of the individual’s longevity or cognitive functions

Kinda like a worse version of what Spartan-IIIs, particularly the Gammas, had to deal with

In any case, I kinda prefer the idea of there being an intentional trade off built into their premise as they’re an even crueler version of the Spartan program that motivates their ranks not through altruistic humanitarianism but through monetary coercion

Some are more so victims, but I could also see some being into the “hustler” aspect of it, relishing in the prospect of earning their bag in the long term

[empty bloom]

It also kinda sounds like they are kinda just forcing Janissaries to earn their augs one at a time?

[modest marsh]

I’m sure it varies depending on the contract

[empty bloom]

"Sure we'll give you that synthetic spleen for this job. Hope you don't get shot."

[modest marsh]

I kinda like the idea of someone voluntarily agreeing to a terms of service

Like, presumably there’s a baseline budget option that gets them to a minimum benchmark of capability, and from there there’s gonna be a gradient dependent on the quality of their procedure, the innate physicality/compatibility of the subject, and what their job is supposed to be

[unique rune]

digestive system subscription service

[modest marsh]

Not far off from BMW making you pay for heated seats on a monthly basis

[modest marsh]

Also some people just get unlucky with the outcome of their procedure

The transition from human to transhuman is traumatic, even for the well prepared. Those who crack under the pressure, but are still salvageable, are put to work alongside Brute berserkers and other expendables

[empty bloom]

Ngl I really wanna know how these guys would slot into a force lineup

[stoic hamlet]

Not well, I imagine.

[empty bloom]

Remember those weird raging dudes in Gears Judgement?

That's what the concept reminds me of.

[modest marsh]

We know that there’s hierarchical mobility for Banished Janissaries

Though it’s unclear if this is inclusive of those who have been kidnapped and subjected to indentured servitude

[empty bloom]

I see the lowest being fed similar combat drugs to Brute Berserkers, given stuff like the Mutilator Shotgun, and told to have fun.

Especially since we know gravity maces are not actually barred to low-to-middle ranking Banished.

[modest marsh]

Well, the rumble drugs as seen in the Hippocratica chronicle are clearly connected to janissaries somehow

It’s not clear how

[empty bloom]

Combat stims, I'd assume, to bring them even closer to a Spartan.

[modest marsh]

The effects of rumbledrugs aren’t that dissimilar from the berserker rage of Gammas, or the Brute Berserker’s chronic state of mania

I would say though that they were probably looking for a more long term solution using rumbledrugs as a framework to build on

Since relying on a pharmaceutical cocktail that only temporarily boosts physicality at the cost of the soldier’s health and cognitive function doesn’t seem like a sustainable method

[empty bloom]

Maybe the reason they get yeeted with Berserkers has to do with the side effects?

Like, the long term version fails, the short term effects start creeping in.

[modest marsh]

The “Savage” class Janissaries are specifically the ones deployed alongside berserkers, or at least that’s my understanding

As in, the helmet description would lean towards this being a particular role that only certain Janissaries occupy as a consequence of their failed procedures

[vagrant ocean]

I made a Janissary, named him after a Tolkien character

[sonic lagoon]

The US government did.

[supple harness]

Yes! And we at ONI definitely did not

[minor sky]

And to think, ONI could've avoided all this had they just given people what they were owed

Actually, this reminds me, I kind of wish the Librarian cutscene in Halo 4 had made it clearer that the Librarian's plan was more about the Spartans as a whole and not just Chief specifically

[wispy pewter]

ONI didnt "kidnap" kids.
somehow the kids accidentally fell into the hands of their agents!

[minor sky]

Granted that scene is kind of a microcosm for the issues with the game's story

I could totally be misinterprating that scene but I was under the impression that the "eventuality" was a little more broad than just Chief and Cortana specifically. That being said I also think it is totally understandable that people would see it as just specifically refering to them

[blazing ivy]

No. Not because the machine is broken, it isn't, but because I don't wanna.
makes chocolate frosty for myself

[blazing ivy]

Exactly what I am saying. We- Uh, I mean ONI, who we have no affiliation to, would never.

[sonic lagoon]

Yeah, those children were given free food and exercise, as well as free vacations to heaven itself on many occasions. They were given excellent mental health treatments.

[vagrant ocean]

We need a book that takes place on a Welsh colony.

[minor sky]

A book set on Chipps Dubbo's home planet of Space Australia

[wispy pewter]

we need a book where the cute halo marine is the main character

[minor sky]

Give them a sidekick who can be turned into a marketable plushie

[jade cape]

I feel like Halo in general, especially as it pertains to the games could really benefit from more stories with average, unaugmented people at the center, ground level type stuff

one of the reasons ODST is in my top 3 Halo games

[autumn totem]

Don’t think it’ll ever happen, at least not anytime soon. But I’d love a Halo game that is open-world single player 3rd person RPG. Similar to Elden Ring, you’d have a vast open world that is ripe for bits and pieces of lore and mythology. Now imagine if it takes place during the Forerunner, Ancient Human era. Or the 100,000 year gap where you go on a solo journey to unravel what happened in a post apocalyptic Maethrillian. Or visit an ancient world that’s been overtaken by the Flood. A once magnificent world overrun by an eldritch horror in an incomprehensible fashion. Decaying poetic beauty. Kinda like Shadow of the Erdtree.

Halo has the lore, worldbuilding and mythology to support all gaming genres. And I’d be curious to see it going full open world RPG story driven style.

[twin parcel]

I just want a game with regular humans

[vagrant ocean]

Halo: The Sims.

[twin parcel]

Nah I mean like with Marines but I wouldn't mind a FOB/UNSC base builder tycoon like city skylines. I'm a fan of those games. I sometimes enjoy laid back game play

[vagrant ocean]

Last time they tried an RPG it got canceled so Don Mattrick could get a bonus.

Which he never got cuz he sucked wang at running Xbox.

[twin parcel]

I (and probably a vast amount of the community) want a halo wars style game but as a fleet commander in space.

Until that day though, I'll keep using Space Engineers as a replacement.

[vagrant ocean]

An Empire at War style game would be nice. I want one where you pilot fighters, not unlike Ace Combat, and maybe make it compatible with flight sticks

[twin parcel]

So, star wars squadrons but better?

I agree. I'd love to be a Longsword pilot.

[vagrant ocean]

Yes. Basically Squadrons but I can use my $120 controller.

[twin parcel]

Fellow plane guy I see.

[vagrant ocean]

I really gotta get back to my AC7 all S-rank run.

[twin parcel]

Lmfao. I really gotta redownload project wingman

[vagrant ocean]

They need to hurry up and announce AC8 before the subreddit summons another demon. Rumor has it they’re responsible for Ukraine doing Operation Spiderweb

[twin parcel]

Rumor has it that the Belkans did nothing wrong...

[vagrant ocean]

I’m being legit, they’ve been doing dark rituals all year.

[twin parcel]

I'm not surprised. I'm pretty sure ace combat fans are the primary arrest targets for the FBI.

[empty bloom]

You're thinking of Rust fans.

Or Day Z fans, or sometimes Escape from Tarkov fans.

[twin parcel]

I take offense to that as a tarkov fan.

It's more in line with War Thunder fans.

Which I also am.

Wait, most of the Fandoms I'm in probably put me on a watch list.

[empty bloom]

I mean, take offense all you want, but it's a hypermilitarized game with a dev team and fanbase with certain proclivities that don't exactly have the most endearing of social traits.

Which is a shame. I kinda like the concept but a lot of the everything around it keeps me away out of mild disgust.

[twin parcel]

I only really like Tarkov because I'm a fan of Milsim/tactical games

Mostly I play STALKER for the Tarkov feel nowadays though

[stoic hamlet]

Meanwhile me playing Foxhole for its focus on large scale warfare and that “cog in the machine” feeling. 90% of Halo fans could never fathom the thought.

[lament karma]

Imagine being a cog in the machine.

Hides Spartan-III OC who wears all black and is a Headhunter.

[stoic hamlet]

Ugh, personally.

One among many is more interesting than one above all.

[vagrant ocean]

Hence why my first Halo OC was just a regular vet,

[minor sky]

Xbox try not suck for 5 minutes (impossible)

Laura Fryer described the period Mattrick took over as boss as being where Xbox stopped being a meritocracy and started acting a lot more corporate

Executives were a lot more interested in their bonuses and didn't want to take "No" for an answer

Hence why Xbox has been chugging stupid juice for a decade now

[still heron]

Pfft. Unless they're flying fighters through remote control like the QFA-44 Carmilla from Infinity I doubt that.

[thorn osprey]

I'm feinding for that

[heady peak]

So I’d like to know why the UNSC didn’t just build a hundred replicas of the Spirit of fire. I mean, it is just me, or is it literally the toughest ship that ever existed in Halo? I’ve been recently playing the series in chronological order, and I’m starting to notice just how busted that ship is

The thing apparently has enough space to fit thousands of soldiers, vehicles, and bases onboard. It survived getting sideswiped by a Covenant ship (which looked like it destroyed a fair amount of their base dropping transport thingys), and after losing half their crew and losing the left side of the thing, still managed to kick the banished off the Ark.

The Infinity’s got nothing on that chonky boy

Oh, and it has Elephants that can generate infinite marines

[carmine sleet]

The Elephants can't actually generate infinite marines, that's just for gameplay

[unique rune]

the UNSC has yet to invent a way to mass-produce the plot armor protecting an 80-year-old converted colonization vessel

[carmine sleet]

This 80 year old colonization vessel still deploys bases the old fashioned way

[thorn osprey]

The spirit of fire was how they explained the base building mechanics

[heady peak]

I know, I was pointing out how the Halo wars games contrasted a lot with the games they were seated best to in the story

Like how the first Halo wars game is right next to Reach, and in Reach the Covenant absolutely devastated the UNSC even though they had theoretically more forces than the Spirit of Fire had.

[carmine sleet]

Halo Wars takes place over 20 years before the events of Reach

[heady peak]

I know, I’m just saying that if the Covenant are winning fights against the UNSC, it’s weird that the Spirit of Fire basically fought both the Covenant and the Banished’s when both would’ve been at around full strength

[carmine sleet]

Plot armour

And some stuff happening the way it does during gameplay because it'd feel pretty bad if the player was constantly just defeated all the time

[heady peak]

Yeah, Still don’t understand the Elephants generating infinite marines though…

Hey… I just had a theory, maybe they have flash clone labs inside those things, and they’re cloning marines and shoving them out into battle lol

[carmine sleet]

It's just for gameplay, there's no flash cloning Elephants pumping out armys of marines

[stoic hamlet]

mainly this, it should be said.

[carmine sleet]

Indeed

[thorn osprey]

I was going to continue and say that's it plot armor (which isn't a bad thing. Master Chief, for all intents and purposes, had plot armor (luck))

The in-universe explanation is that the Spirit of Fires ship class was likely discontinued

[empty bloom]

Author Fiat.

[empty bloom]

In a realistic sense the Infinity is a far superior ship, carrying many more troops, many more supplies, and much heavier arms and armor with a more effecient and precise slipspace drive even when the Spirit has a drive installed.

Capable of ripping most smaller Covenant ships in half with a single shot from her main gun.

[modest marsh]

Outside of the reasons people already gave you, we don’t exactly have a price point or production time table for how long it would take to build a new Phoenix-class vessel with the same capabilities

We’re also given the impression that Cutter and his crew are an exceptionally talented bunch whose skills, tenacity, and resourcefulness aren’t something that you can easily replicate

Furthermore, just because the Spirit of Fire was really good at doing specifically what it was good at, that doesn’t mean it suited the overall strategic needs of the UNSC during the war, where planting bases on colonies to support protracted ground wars became less and less useful

It’s important to note that the Spirit itself, as in the ship, has no actual ship kills on record, which technically makes it an underperformer in terms of “super ships” in the UNSC fleet

It’s an exceptional case but even the Iroquois, a ship 1/25th the size by mass, under the command of Captain Keyes managed to eliminate a Covenant destroyer and two frigates on its own

[vagrant ocean]

I’m not even sure if they can make Phoenix-class ships at all, given the pattern’s age

[vagrant ocean]

*guns

[modest marsh]

Right, there’s the issue of having to restart manufacturing lines for a ship class not even designed for battle

[vagrant ocean]

Oh it’s almost certain that the SoF is the last Phoenix-class in existence, a 200 year old ship pattern that’s meant to be expendable? Yeah there’s none left but her.

[vagrant ocean]

And THEN trying to dig up the specifications for the SoF’s refit pattern

Which is probably lost to time or data loss, given it’s been almost 70 years since the refit.

[modest marsh]

More to the point though, if you assume Keyes and Cutter (and their respective crews) were equivalent in terms of skill, the Halberd class is far and away the more economical choice in terms of its strategic impact relative to how much you’ve invested into it

(Assuming cost scales linearly with mass)

Obviously SoF is a support vessel so gauging its importance based on it’s ability to take out ships is a little unfair, but as I’ve already pointed out, it’s not like the pace of the war really allowed that to come into play very often anyways

[vagrant ocean]

Hell, if we were to make another massive ship on par with the Phoenix-class, why not make a Valiant or Marathon? Or a dozen Halberds?

[modest marsh]

It was precisely where it needed to be to give the maximum possible benefit

[vagrant ocean]

It’s the same issue battleships faced after the Second Great War. Why make a couple massive battleships when we can make a couple dozen smaller ships that can lay down the same volume of fire?

[loud fjord]

Im surprised that cloned Spartans aren't a thing oni has tried in lore yet.

[modest marsh]

Spartans were originally conceptualized as cyborg clones by Bungie, before they were called Spartans, but the lore changed to accommodate expanded universe material

In universe, the main reason is that cloning methodology is imperfect because it’s been banned since the 22nd century

You couldn’t reliably ensure you’d get an optimally healthy subject, they may or may not have underlying genetic or neurological problems that would render them incompatible with turning them into super soldiers

Furthermore, genetics aren’t everything or even the main deciding factor alone

Halsey required certain genetic markers for her augmentation program to work but each of the children were exceptionally gifted as a consequence of how they developed which wasn’t necessarily replicable in lab conditions

[loud fjord]

You'd think it'd be considered more maybe a longer process than what flash clones entails.

[vagrant ocean]

Well, full body cloning has been banned as part of the Mortal Dictata, partial cloning for organs and limbs is legal.

[empty bloom]

So, hypothetically, I could ship-of-Theseus someone to rules lawyer my way into a clone

[vagrant ocean]

Perhaps, flash clone the parts and stitch them together.

Then again, who knows how long it’d live. And the quality of life it would have.

[carmine sleet]

At that point, you're just doing a Frankenstein but with cloned body parts instead of corpses of multiple dead people

[vagrant ocean]

Yeh

You’d be better off just implanting a cloned brain into a robot body.

Prolly cheaper

[carmine sleet]

Most likely

But then you'd have to deal with the risk of the cyborg realising what it is and the ramifications of it coming to that realisation

[loud fjord]

Robot cop halo crossover

[carmine sleet]

But also at that point you'd just be making Pete's World Cybermen from Doctor Who

[vagrant ocean]

Don’t make me laugh

[unique rune]

I mean there's no real benefit to it at that point

you can just kidnap some already-grown six year olds instead of going through the trouble of cloning them and waiting six years

[carmine sleet]

https://tenor.com/view/doctor-who-bbc-bbc-iplayer-disney-plus-mr-ring-a-ding-gif-4959022598802130062

[vagrant ocean]

Lowkey, can’t wait to see what they do next year

[loud fjord]

And if they lack the genetic markers Halsey was looking for you'd just have regular black ops child soldiers

[carmine sleet]

They didn't kidnap then screen though, they already knew who had the markers Halsey needed

[unique rune]

I mean they weren’t exactly limited by the number of kids that fit the generic markers

they’d picked 150 candidates but had their budget slashed so they could only take 75

and even with the selected markers they still killed or maimed like half of them

[loud fjord]

What percentage of the population was viable for the s2 program?

Cause one hundred and fifty out of billions makes them seem rare even with filtering them through outer colonies and people they could get away with kidnapping.

[tough peak]

So halo isn't based on earth?

[modest marsh]

Halo exists in an alternate history version of real life that up to the 21st century is almost entirely the same from the perspective of modern civilization

Earth is the homeworld of humanity, and its main economic and political center

As well as the most populous planet

Most stories do not take place on earth though

[shy wyvern]

So I'm starting to gather some info and lore for my eventual (amateur) halo story and I've been reading into the Precursors. By the 9 divine what on EARTH were the authors smoking when they coined the whole neural physics thing????

It's neat, but I'm also trying to wrap my head around it. I guess that's the point, but goodness it's confusing

I really need to read (more like listen to) the books. I just don't have the energy to alas

[stoic hamlet]

The Forerunner trilogy is so rich fiction. Without reading it personally it’ll all seem kind of insane.

Most people get their info from wikis (not bad) or YouTubers (awful) and both of those have the potential (mainly the latter) of being wrong and sensationalized.

Which just makes it worse.

Shockingly, I know, actually reading the sources tends to help with understanding, lol

[vagrant ocean]

I did the math on this, hold on

[vagrant ocean]

The 150 that were scoped out measured 0.000000384615% of the population of humanity, and half of them were actually conscripted and only half of them survived augmentation. So the 75 that were taken only make up 0.000000192308% of the entire human population as of 2517, and only 0.0000000961538% of the human population were comparable enough on a genetic level to avoid serious complications as a result of Project: ASTER. Now, a handful of IIs were successfully rehabilitated after washing out and returned to active service, thus TECHNICALLY increasing the success rate of the program, but for every Alice or Kirk there was a Cass or Musa.

[loud fjord]

So yeah cloning seems like a viable spartan replacement option if they didnt degenerate so fast.

[modest marsh]

This is “deep lore” but I keep wishing we knew why cloning was determined to be off the table in the first place

[wispy pewter]

I thought it was flash cloning that is always non successful

[modest marsh]

No, in fact several of the Spartan-II clones were viable for at least several years after their creation

[wispy pewter]

Yeah I mean they always die after a few years

Or days

[modest marsh]

So do normal people sometimes

It’s entirely possible that if cloning technology was allowed to progress without restriction, these flaws could be corrected

But aside from Halsey’s experiments, there’s no indication that any progress has been made in the past 400 years or so

[wispy pewter]

Starts with E

[modest marsh]

One of Halsey’s clones is alive and in relative health, outside of her limbs not developing properly

The fact that the Halsey brain experiment worked in the first place would indicate it is totally possible to replicate a human in its totality without any flaws, it just hasn’t been done yet

[wispy pewter]

But then if they did have great focus on cloning technology, they would have made a grand army of the republic by now

[modest marsh]

The brain is the hardest part to get right

[modest marsh]

Ehh, I don’t think clones are a replacement for a mostly volunteer army

Say what you will about the UNSC, they’ve done a fantastic job of preserving their manpower even after decades of extinction level catastrophe

[unique rune]

clone armies mostly don't make sense in general I'm pretty sure

[wispy pewter]

Cloning could go unethical very quickly

[wispy pewter]

Yeah I think they have conscription

[modest marsh]

It’s inherently unethical to make a person for the expressed intent to use them for a specific purpose

[wispy pewter]

[modest marsh]

Many argue that even the practice of industrialized cattle farming or breeding of pets is morally wrong but the contemporaneous objection to that is that they’re non-sapient

Clones however would presumably be sapient

[modest marsh]

Also yes the UNSC technically has provisions for conscription, however this mainly seems to be the case for wards of the state, as seen with Ilsa Zane and Mickey Crespo

It could also be dependent on the local government rather than the totality of the UEG

Most service members seem to be volunteers though

[loud fjord]

I kinda wish halo had evil mega corp side stories trying to give the UNSC an edge during the war.

[modest marsh]

Uhhh

I mean that is in fact the case already

It’s more emphasized in the post war era granted

[vagrant ocean]

I suspect it could be related to the Interplanetary Wars.

[loud fjord]

Yeah, its just now a central focus to many plots though.

[modest marsh]

I have proof that it is, it’s just indirect

Extremely subtle

[wispy pewter]

We’re Spartan IIs genetically modified or is it mostly physical

[vagrant ocean]

Perhaps the Friendenists using cloned soldiers?

[vagrant ocean]

Both. Hence the genetic screening.

[modest marsh]

The strongest piece of evidence is that the original ORION protocols were derived from research that originated from the Interplanetary Wars

[wispy pewter]

I wonder what are the UEG views on genetic engineering

[modest marsh]

Furthermore, the Jovian colonies specialized in bioengineering and xenoanthropology, and had funding from pharmaceutical corporations

[vagrant ocean]

Perhaps a conflict similar to the Eugenics Wars from Star Trek

[modest marsh]

The purpose being to attempt to develop terraforming and colonization technologies

In theory you could develop genetic modifications for both human colonists and crops to be able to comfortably live on alien worlds

[vagrant ocean]

Because we know almost nothing about the conflict except for the combatants and a couple battles.

[modest marsh]

This is similar to what happened with the Helghast in the Killzone universe as well

Or FEV in Fallout

[vagrant ocean]

Never played that.

Dead game

[modest marsh]

It’s a halo killer I swear

[loud fjord]

It was good, not great. Resistance was better.

[modest marsh]

In any case, the ORION protocols were relaunched as a UEG bluesky project to help facilitate extrasolar colonization during the domus diaspora

[vagrant ocean]

I wouldn’t be shocked if the Mortal Dictata was made as a result of what the Friedenists did during the Interplanetary Wars.

[modest marsh]

That first phase fell through, but the researchers were then placed onto terraformation projects

Which again, suggests to me there’s a clear lineage there

[vagrant ocean]

That was the initial launch. The program Johnson is part of is the second attempt.

[modest marsh]

Yeah I’m aware

I’m simply stating the significance of that timeline because it points to the idea that this was all connected somehow

The bottom line is that we know they were researching bioengineering technology on the Jovian moons, so it’s not really a coincidence at all that that’s where the research used to develop future super soldier protocols were originally derived

[modest marsh]

In essence, yes, I think the fascist ethno supremacist Friedenists were using their bioengineering technology to create super soldiers, more specifically genetically modified and perhaps cybernetic clones

[vagrant ocean]

Perhaps the Jovian Friendenists were working on their own Lebensborn program,

[vagrant ocean]

Yeh, like the Lebensborn but accelerated

[modest marsh]

To use another video game example, the Wolfenstein super soldiers come to mind

[vagrant ocean]

I have a feeling they wouldn’t really breed an army of brainless brutes if they were seeking to create perfect warriors.

They’d breed things similar to the IIs, just probably way less stable physically and mentally

Once again something that could be useful to improve living for humanity is ruined by Nazis.

[wispy pewter]

I think humanity already cured cancer in the Halo universe

And people live to a 100

[modest marsh]

They don’t need to regard the initial experiments with as much care as long as it forwards their goal of promoting “evolution”

[modest marsh]

Sort of

[vagrant ocean]

Most cancers are cured.

[modest marsh]

The means of treating and preventing cancer has more or less been perfected to the point almost no one dies from it

But people still can get cancer in rare circumstances and will suffer if it goes untreated

[vagrant ocean]

Especially if it’s radiation related

It’s like dying from the plague in 2025, literally no reason

[modest marsh]

In any case I’m a little biased but this is a concept I’d like to explore in some fashion just because it sounds like it would be fun from a gameplay perspective (even though Halo is allergic to non-Spartan stuff)

[wispy pewter]

They still haven’t figured out regrowing limbs tho

[modest marsh]

It’s not the limb itself that’s the problem, it’s the nerve clusters necessary to control it

[vagrant ocean]

They have. Organ and limb cloning are regular occurrences, some just choose to opt for cybernetics.

[wispy pewter]

Oh

[loud fjord]

Im guessing its much harder to clone an augmented arm too.

[wispy pewter]

Wait doesn’t the Mortal Dictata ban cloning humans for organs lol

[modest marsh]

It’s a lot easier to make the nerve inputs work in a mechanical arm than a cloned one

[modest marsh]

Yeah, entire humans

Not individual organs

[wispy pewter]

Interesting

[vagrant ocean]

Individual organs are perfectly fine to clone, hell, we can clone some appendages in modern times, like ears

[modest marsh]

You can’t harvest cloned people

[wispy pewter]

I dont think cybernetics will ever feel as good as an organic limb

[vagrant ocean]

Organic limbs can’t be replaced in the field,

[modest marsh]

You’re presupposing that the phantom limb problem has been solved, because that’s a whole ‘nother thing

[loud fjord]

I imagine after a few battles with them and pulling a cookie rack straight from the oven makes the cyber arm more appealing.

[modest marsh]

You can’t necessarily make someone forget they used to have an organic limb, give them a new one, and expect it to work the same

[vagrant ocean]

Kinda hard to repair software.

[stoic hamlet]

Notably, when Ash-G099 thought he had been made deaf by a flashbangs, he was annoyed at needing to wait two weeks for the cloned eardrum to take, implying it’d happened before and was frequent enough it had passed from a “holy ||fudge|| I’m deaf!?!?” To just an annoyance like a flu bug.

[modest marsh]

You could however program a mechanical limb to account for the “signal” discrepancies that the amputee may experience

[vagrant ocean]

Which would mitigate phantom pain

[wispy pewter]

wow they found a cure to tinnitus

[jade cape]

Dunno if it’s necessarily a lore-specific question, but:

what do we think the odds are that the spirit of fire and it’s crew will rejoin or reunite with the rest of the UNSC? I’d kill for a meeting or reunion of Red Team & Chief, or even Blue Team for that matter

[wispy pewter]

soon

[vagrant ocean]

Slim unless the Banished presence on the Ark is destroyed

[wispy pewter]

they probably fixed that 500 years into the future

so much simpler in Star Trek where you can just use a handheld device to fix everything

[modest marsh]

You shouldn’t assume that just because a long time has passed they’ve “solved” a problem completely

People still need to drink and eat water and sleep in the future too

[vagrant ocean]

Mitigated, but not solved. The part of the brain that suffers from phantom pain is a software/firmware issue, which can’t really be fixed.

[modest marsh]

(Not without cybernetics or brain surgery at least)

Uhhh

Maybe drugs

Not clear the exact mechanism there

[vagrant ocean]

And that could easily make it much much worse

[modest marsh]

Actually this would be somatic nerve clusters too, not just the brain

[wispy pewter]

im pretty sure we already have limb transplants

but only for like hands

[vagrant ocean]

Still software issues will occur.

[stoic hamlet]

Granted, I know it’s because it’s a story and not realistic… but even if they rejoin the rest of the UNSC… why would they reunite with Blue Team and co?

Omega and Grey team haven’t, for example.

[wispy pewter]

Because the plot demands it

[vagrant ocean]

I think they want Red Team to reunite with Blue Team cuz they haven’t seen them in a quarter century.

Omega still hasn’t reunited with Silver

[stoic hamlet]

No I know.

[wispy pewter]

There are cases where entire arms were even transplanted. Idk if there are any issues though

[stoic hamlet]

But my point is, aside from this being a story, realistically there’s no point.

[wispy pewter]

Gretchen could have a leg cloned at anytime but I guess she wants to be part clanker

[vagrant ocean]

Again, it’s easier to repair and replace a cybernetic limb than an organic one. It’s just time management

[stoic hamlet]

Tbf, the Omega/Silver connection is just a fan thing.

The most common person on Omega is August, but even August hasn’t been on the team all the time.

[wispy pewter]

August and Jun should meet

and it would make sense, Red Team has experience fighting the banished, they can easily team up with blue team for a search team to Zeta Halo or whatever

[vagrant ocean]

But there’s still the issue of the Banished presence on the Ark, and other Covenant remnants there.

[jade cape]

I’m simply curious as to how it would play out, what the dynamics between the characters would be like to have an entire cast of disconnected characters rejoin the main UNSC forces, knowing only that the banished were the next biggest threat to still be taken care of, etc etc.

I can understand your take on it with regard to the pragmatism of it and how realistic it would be

It’s more or less just my curiosity as a fan

[stoic hamlet]

Most YNSC forces would have more experience fighting the Banished, though.

The Banished were a known entity to the UNSC since 2550 and openly engaging in combat since the end of the war.

[stoic hamlet]

Yeah I get you.

It just feels too contrived to me.

If we haven’t seen Omega and Blue, or Grey reunite together, I don’t see what makes Red Team and the Spirit so special.

[jade cape]

I mean with regard to grey team, the whole point is that they remain in deep cover and it’s very much intentional that their existence and deployment history remain within a “need-to-know” basis, AFAIK

I might be dreadfully misinformed but that’s just on the note of grey team alone

[wispy pewter]

Im guessing the Ferret team onboard has some important information

[stoic hamlet]

No they’re known about.

They were supposed to be part of RED FLAG but were unable to be recalled.

They’re now openly working alongside UNSC forces in a traditional capacity.

Their uniqueness was because of supply and timing, not anything to do with being especially classified.

At least, no more than any other II.

[vagrant ocean]

Only Naomi is working on classified matters

[stoic hamlet]

Nothing especially relevant to the Spirit’s situation. Anything Saber and Veta knows would be useless, or out of date.

[jade cape]

Well, what I mean is yeah people know about grey team, but their whole shtick (or at least it was up until empty throne as far as I know) was being the deep cover Spartan II team

If I implied anything about them was classified that’s a semantic error on my part, my point was to say it’s in their nature as a fireteam given what they specialize in to remain more secretive than other Spartan teams, or at least at one point that was the case

I could also just be totally uninformed on the subject, in which case please correct me

[wispy pewter]

I guess they can reunite just for the sake of it, since Red team was presumed dead for like 20 years

[vagrant ocean]

Almost 30.

[modest marsh]

To be clear, what case are you referring to? Because I’m genuinely blanking on what you’re talking about

[wispy pewter]

I just googled limb transplant and a good morning britain video from 2022 shows up

[modest marsh]

Right but I mean in the halo universe

[unique rune]

because they're the only living Spartan-IIs that aren't Blue that the average Halo fan recognizes so clearly something special needs to happen when they exist in the same space

[modest marsh]

I don’t know about the specific case you’re talking about

[wispy pewter]

im saying we have limb transplants already in our world but In Halo everyone seems to be using cybernetics instead

[modest marsh]

Do we?

[wispy pewter]

🥀

[modest marsh]

It sounds like you’re taking an isolated case

[stoic hamlet]

Well obviously.

But that’s why I always ask “okay, but why?” And no one ever gives a good answer, especially with other living II’s present.

[vagrant ocean]

Yes, but it’s from donors. Not cloned. And it still has many many many issues.

[stoic hamlet]

And it’s just kind of tiring, at this point,

[modest marsh]

There we go

[vagrant ocean]

I just wanna know how Cassandra is doing,

[stoic hamlet]

She has skin now \o/

[vagrant ocean]

I’d love to see her future, it could be promising. Even if she just does logistics or helps people with PTSD

I wish we knew more about the washouts, we did get confirmation that Kirk got rehabilitated,

[stoic hamlet]

Honestly I’m still unsure how.

Same for Red, Black, and etc.

[wispy pewter]

I mean they are Spartans. What other reason will they not reunite if the SoF ever comes back to UNSC space

[stoic hamlet]

I don’t see how they could be functional, seemingly utterly perfectly fine Soartans when you’ve got Fhajad ahd Musa in a wheelchair, Siren’s arm was disfigured, Cassandra evidently was degloved in some fashion…

But then Red Team are just… fine.

[vagrant ocean]

I guess they figured out how to reverse the ossification issues. The problem is that we only know a little bit of the issues faced by the washouts. Hell, several of them only washed out because they went crazy, like Ralph

[modest marsh]

Neurological instability is probably the most likely defect if anything

[vagrant ocean]

Red Team was in active service within a few years of the war beginning, so maybe their complications though still initially disqualifying, were not as severe as say Soren or even Cass

[stoic hamlet]

I feel like they really need something to show they’re washouts. Augmentation defects, etc.

[vagrant ocean]

It occurred in Oscar and Ralph

[modest marsh]

I would argue it’s demonstrably the case Soren was rendered mentally unfit

[vagrant ocean]

Keep in mind we only see Douglass’s face, so maybe Alice and Jerome have a facial deformity

[modest marsh]

If anything it was the main reason he was removed from the program, not his physical deformity

[vagrant ocean]

Soren was unfit when they conscripted him in my opinion, just look at his file.

[modest marsh]

Well, to be clear, I think by any realistic standard none of the Spartan-II or III candidates would qualify as “mentally healthy”, especially by the end of their training

[stoic hamlet]

They don’t necessarily need physical deformities, but I’d like some idea of something.

Blindness, spasms or tremors, etc.

[vagrant ocean]

Some were just regular kids, with Kelly thinking the agents were playing a game.

[stoic hamlet]

“By the end of their training” is the key part of that sentence, heh.

[modest marsh]

I should rephrase, but that itself is an example of unusual behavioral patterns

[vagrant ocean]

I’m sure some have twitches, maybe a degraded optic nerve or two, something that can be treated with medication during combat to maintain their effectiveness.

[modest marsh]

Just going by John’s characterization, while he does have some virtuous traits, he’s also hyper competitive to the point he was a danger to other children and had to be banned from certain activities

[vagrant ocean]

I agree that by 2525 any child psychologist worth their salt would classify any of the candidates as insane.

[modest marsh]

That’s someone with some onset behavioral problems that if left untreated could lead to someone with violent tendencies

And frankly, that’s who Halsey wants: thugs with purpose

[vagrant ocean]

Which goes to show how much the program helped with those issues, where he honed his competitiveness in a way that ensured the best results for everyone under his command, which is essentially the entire class.

[stoic hamlet]

Yep.

Jerome is an outlier… but he shouldn’t be the exception, he should really be the rule.

[vagrant ocean]

But even some candidates such as subject 137 showed remorse when she accidentally killed a handler.

Which is a good sign

[empty bloom]

Fun fact, there are slim odds but possible odds that a Spartan IV who fought alongside them at Harvest or one of the other early-war fights might've actually become a Spartan IV, and if they were in the first class, they'd have more combat experience than any individual member of Red, especially as an augmented supersoldier.

[stoic hamlet]

One of the marines on Requiem was a Harvest militiaman

[vagrant ocean]

Hell, Jenkins served almost the entire war

RIP

[empty bloom]

NGL I actually get annoyed by some of the Red Team "Jerome should replace Chief!" stuff because like... Freaking Palmer has more experience than any individual member of Red Team in terms of fighting anything that isn't flood, assuming IVs are running ops nonstop. Given the circumstances I doubt they'd be doing anything but.

[stoic hamlet]

That guy’s combat record should rival basically anyone.

He has more experience than Buck based on years served.

[vagrant ocean]

Lowkey I love Palmer as a character, which is a hot take for some reason

[wispy pewter]

But have they ever soloed a room full of brutes or kill the flood with a chair?

[empty bloom]

Well, Palmer solo'd an entire company of tanks on her own at some point

[stoic hamlet]

The brute thing isn’t exactly hard.

[vagrant ocean]

Just gotta fight smarter than them (not that hard)

[stoic hamlet]

We’ve seen more than a few Spartans pull it off, with worse conditions than Jerome.

[empty bloom]

Hell Sorel took down nearly two dozen Banished by himself before he died, and he was already mortally wounded.

[wispy pewter]

Yeah Jerome was wearing MkIV btw

[empty bloom]

That changes very little, honestly.

[stoic hamlet]

Mark killed a dozen or so with just a knife while in SPI.

[empty bloom]

Didn't one of the IIIG's kill a Chieftain while in little more than a BDU while already disemboweled?

Jerome's little linehold against Brutes is frankly less impressive than Osiris was in their intro cutscene

[stoic hamlet]

Technically the Brute should be dead, but he lived, somehow.

Mentioned in the Encyclopedia.

[empty bloom]

Guh.

[stoic hamlet]

He got stabbed in the neck and lost an eye, from memory, then kicked off a cliff.

But he lived.

[empty bloom]

I'm sure he lived too-

[vagrant ocean]

People are still salty about her cheeky remark to the Chief back on Requiem.

[empty bloom]

"Everyone is 12" theory undefeated record baybee

[stoic hamlet]

There’s a lot wrong with H4, but that remark isn’t one of them.

[modest marsh]

In the case of the HW2 instances with Jerome, his performance is more significant for the fact that he is visibly displacing them with very little effort including knocking one of them off their feet with a thrown knife

[wispy pewter]

Egghead

[modest marsh]

He’s also attracted their sole attention in a confined space

[vagrant ocean]

Especially since she shows respect to him by disobeying Del Rio when he demands Chief’s arrest.

[stoic hamlet]

99% of Halo fans are whiny manchildren, what do you expect?

[vagrant ocean]

She’s a marine, they’re not known for their respect of intelligent people.

[empty bloom]

I mean your average Halo fan has a lot in common with certain people I study for polsci for a reason.

[stoic hamlet]

Mhm.

[empty bloom]

And it is not one that reflects well on either party. Anyways, nostalgia is for children and everyone is 12.

[wispy pewter]

Because who would try to stop chief lol

[vagrant ocean]

“What do you mean I ignored literally all the subtext of the franchise?”

[empty bloom]

"What do you mean Star Trek was always woke?"

[vagrant ocean]

He’s THE Spartan, the man she wants her Spartans to emulate.

[stoic hamlet]

Halo as a franchise is just making it more noticeable, because they just keep doubling down.

[vagrant ocean]

“Green Day is political?!”

[empty bloom]

Also, like, Del Rio was legit kind of in the wrong here.

In a way.

[stoic hamlet]

He was “right” but going about it the wrong way.

[vagrant ocean]

On the books he was correct. In reality he was very very wrong.

[stoic hamlet]

Based off the info he had it was the right call.

[wispy pewter]

Yeah I think every Spartan already looks up to him

[empty bloom]

Just once I want a Spartan IV who doesn't. One that I didn't write.

[vagrant ocean]

Every recruit walks by his battered MkIV.

[vagrant ocean]

Scruggs maybe?

[empty bloom]

Not necessarily being crass about disliking the IIs, but more just flatly thinking hero worship is genuinely stupid for the job they do.

[stoic hamlet]

Stuff like that is why I try to avoid Spartans, to a point.

It just feels so soapy.

[vagrant ocean]

Folks need heroes

[stoic hamlet]

The whole “operator/warfighter hero worship” combined with the Greek god thing of the II’s and IV’s is just so, so dumb.

[empty bloom]

Like, there's a line between aspiring and worshipping and Halo tends to cross that line to an unsavory degree.

[stoic hamlet]

I’ve always despised it.

[vagrant ocean]

It’s why I don’t really write stories, just dossiers.

[wispy pewter]

He did save humanity more than once. Then again so did every soldier that accompanied him

[empty bloom]

Gotta write my Spartan as better-read on the subject than Halsey and just flatly thinking the name "Spartan" is stupid, and sarcastically referring to her technician team as "Helots".

[vagrant ocean]

Popcorn

[stoic hamlet]

At least the III’s are shown to aspire but not worship.

They’re the only generation that don’t seem to fawn over the II’s in that way.

Even Moralez, an ORION, puts absurd amounts of faith into Chief.

[modest marsh]

Helot is my self deprecating nickname for ODSTs assigned alongside Spartan teams

[empty bloom]

Lmao, glad to see I'm not the only one to think of stuff like that.

[vagrant ocean]

My marine OC calls Spartans the Einherjar,

[modest marsh]

More specifically, I figured that you’d use that as a callsign for the hypothetical power-assisted units that were conceptualized for 5 that now we know is called Orcus

[vagrant ocean]

Cuz he thinks they’re fallen warriors brought back to life, not unlike the Covenant mythology on Spartans.

[wispy pewter]

Spartan name is fine. Better than naming your special forces after a cute marine animal

[empty bloom]

Seals aren't cute.

They're all cute and cuddly when they know you and they're in a good mood but a leopard seal is horrifying in its element.

The real reason why the name "Spartan" is bad is because it both sends a bad omen on the Spartan program (the real Spartans died out because of how elitist they were), and because it doesn't actually sync with the history of the name.

It's the same reason why wannabe soldiers IRL, otherwise called LARPers, AKA most people who have an F-350 with a gun sticker and american flag on their truck, are unintentionally ironic when they brag about their Moron Lobe or whatever.

[unique rune]

I feel like naming your elite supersoldier death squad program after supposed ancient "badasses" comes off more pathetic in hindsight than anything

[empty bloom]

It's very cringe, but Bungie likes their cringe.

I think "Prometheans" is honestly a better name given what Halsey's personal motivations were

[empty bloom]

Neat idea if he doesn't know

[empty bloom]

Not gonna lie, Horvath having that whole "Guh Chief you're the only one who can save us now" spiel is just so gross to me.

[vagrant ocean]

He didn’t, he joined 3 years into the war, so despite fighting alongside them he had no clue about their origins till much later

It’s mainly due to his heritage and the stories his family told

[empty bloom]

I like it.

Oh, this has nothing to do with anything, but I hate Emile's skull because it makes him look like a damn poseur.

Guy never grew up past doodling skulls in his textbooks at like 12-14 and it shows.

[vagrant ocean]

I mean…

[stoic hamlet]

Again, I just think it’s a disservice to the setting and the audience.

I mean, you know, I don’t hold the common Halo fan in high regard, but pandering to them rather than trying to do better is just sad.

[empty bloom]

Something something Kratos going "We must do better" when someone's crying in the background

[vagrant ocean]

He’s only 29. And emotionally stunted.

[empty bloom]

I'm emotionally stunted too, but you don't see me being an edgelord about it.

Instead, I'm just diet jerk.

[vagrant ocean]

I mean, did your parents get killed in a terror attack and then your older brother died in an alien attack so now you’re a genetically modified killing machine?

[empty bloom]

Shhh, that's season 3 trenchbird lore.

No spoilers.

[unique rune]

do your seasons have battle passes

[empty bloom]

Yes, but we call them Trenchbonds.

[unique rune]

nice

[vagrant ocean]

I have box bonds

Think box tops

[modest marsh]

Yeah I think this is good and important to be the case

Spartans are man children

[empty bloom]

I feel like it mostly makes sense for IIIs to be that way, with it being roughly a split when it comes to some things.

Like, Carter being weirdly well-adjusted is fine since I don't really think it's the rule either.

Hah.

Now I'm thinking of an ONI officer sighing in relief when he realizes the Spartan who just stepped aboard his Prowler for assignment is not a III but instead a IV who served as an officer before augmentation.

"Finally. Someone who can actually hold a conversation without being a morbid weirdo."

[stoic hamlet]

I’ve always figured II’s and III’s would be childish hut not immature.

Just… really awkward.

They seem “mature” and “smart” but they’re not actually “well adjusted”.

[empty bloom]

SO basically an army of Emiles and Noble Sixes, with the odd Carter or Jun.

[stoic hamlet]

More like an army of the synths from Alien Earth.

[empty bloom]

Never watched, so

[modest marsh]

Not everyone’s behavioral quirks are going to manifest the same way, and how one gauges “maturity” falls under a wide umbrella of personality traits

[stoic hamlet]

Basically, imagine you’re doing an experiment with… idk, brain waves.

And they know that’s what they’re measuring, but they don’t know what specifically it’s called.

An adult would probably stumble because they don’t want to embarrass themselves, but a kid would just blurt out “the wavy lines” or what have you.

[modest marsh]

I think it’s fair to say that Chief has refused to allow himself to be emotionally developed beyond his teens for instance

[stoic hamlet]

Also true.

[modest marsh]

He just became extremely hardened early on and then never changed because of an expectation of decorum and stoicism unique to his role

[wispy pewter]

Boo!
-Chief

[modest marsh]

Chief being a jokester isn’t what I’m talking about, I mostly mean how he very clearly avoids having adult conversations about what he’s feeling under a guise of confidence and focus

All throughout 4, 5, and Infinite he’s very clearly having an internal struggle but can’t bring himself to be transparent even a little bit

[versed salmon]

When is the last time we hear about Offensive Bias lore wise, apart from Infinite where he's assigned to assist Despondent Pyre in studying the Endless (in the past)?

[vagrant ocean]

When he brings Mendicant Bias to the remnants of the Ecumene to stand trial.

[vagrant ocean]

He’s afraid of being a human.

[orchid kettle]

Personally I feel like the Spartans are distant enough from traditional military norms to say that they're treated more like superheroes than "operators"

I think its just like, the bad way to write Superheroes, where the audience is asked to value their ability to dole out violence and eradicate evil over anything else

which i guess is more or less the same way media treats characters like Soap or Captain Price, it's just a matter of aesthetics, of how many times the characters say "oscar mike"

Or how willing the narrative is to excuse torture and war crimes committed by the "good guys", lol

[modest marsh]

Halo doesn’t really glorify torture for the most part at least

Though in retrospect I’m not sure what the point of that Empty Throne interrogation scene was

[thorn osprey]

Character development for 'Juran and figuring out where the Lithos is

[scarlet quiver]

This could be a factor.
When you are surrounded by death and possible death of your loved ones all the time, "being a machine" is a preferable option.

[modest marsh]

This particular excerpt from First Strike comes to mind:

John was glad they could joke about her return from the dead. He couldn’t bring himself to join in, though. He had accepted the mantle of command, and CPO Mendez had taught him to repress his external emotional reactions to preserve his authority. Right now, he resented that.

Even among Spartans, he’s been subjecting himself to a lifelong commitment to bottling any form of vulnerability because of alleged sense of responsibility but in reality this feels like a coping mechanism he’s hiding behind because he hasn’t actually learned how to process emotions in a healthier way

There’s the part in Halo 4 where Cortana is getting all existential about the nature of her subjective experience and how it will never be as fulfilling as being a living breathing human being and instead of like, acknowledging what she’s going through, Chief pretends like he’s really gotta check that his assault rifle is working when we all know it’s performative busywork to keep his mind focused on the task at hand

Love this scene in Wolfenstein 2 where it reverses the roles
https://youtu.be/X2T2XZkDx74?si=68_ccBPDbLaaaJDP

[scarlet quiver]

These are all great points, and resource. I feel like a therapist, but as Halsey stated (not an exact quote), "His emotional status is well given his line of work."
Start of Halo 4 campaign.

So honestly, it is a deep topic.

She has a point, but could his emotional and relation status be more improved if things were done differently?
Or is "sufficient for their means" good enough?

[twin parcel]

This makes SPARTANs ten times more tragic.

[unborn patrol]

are you sure

[twin parcel]

Especially if you look at it from a perspective of a Marine or other regular human soldier. What you think is an infallible hero you've always looked up to is breaking at the seams emotionally would wreck morale.

[unborn patrol]

he hasnt had the privilege of learning that. like all hes done his entire life is go to war. no space for that

[lament karma]

I mean, he does tell || Joy || he’s not okay in one level

[vagrant ocean]

He’s never been ok. Lets be honest

[twin parcel]

Fr

[empty bloom]

That is actually kinda one of the big things with the cult of the warrior/operator tbh

It's kind of a whole death cult style philosophy.

[orchid kettle]

I guess yeah, the difference is just like how tacticool they're dressed

[empty bloom]

It's why stories like new God of War, or, hell, new Halo, tend to get dragged and lambasted by people who Strongly like the aesthetic of the skull-masked warrior murdering aliens or whatever.

[orchid kettle]

I do feel like Chief validating the Pilot wouldn't really feel right in say, your typical jingoistic war movie

[empty bloom]

Because they approach the topic as anything but slaughter for slaughter's sake and have more nuance and sense to how they handle the actual consequences of such an act.

[orchid kettle]

like the Pilot would just be mocked for not being "a real man" and if he has any arc at all it'd be how he finally "manned up" and shot somebody with a gun

[empty bloom]

There's actually a lot of examples in 4, 5, and Infinite, yeah. That's one of the more prominent ones but it's also super blatant.

It's also why Chief's remarks about the death of Escharum make... Very little sense.

[orchid kettle]

They're real desperate for a villain to be Chief's "dark reflection"

but I feel like it never really works the second you make the villain the actual leader of their faction, and present their actions as entirely self-motivated

Like I think "Evil Chief" would just be like some other villain's right hand man who performs atrocities he knows are wrong

Warden Eternal probably comes closest ironically just be virtue of being Cortana's simp lol

but again a lot of times its made clear he's attacking us even when Cortana doesn't want him to

[empty bloom]

Ironically I actually think Cortana wholeheartedly approaching Halsey's philosophy and Chief turning more 'human' was genuinely the single best option.

Post 5 at least.

And they went with a bad direction due to backlash and meddling.

[orchid kettle]

I think my issue is that I feel like Chief was already human

[vagrant ocean]

The biggest issue 343 had was over correcting.

[empty bloom]

It's why his response to Escharum feels dramatically out of place, because few of his insistences about Escharum sound massively out of touch with what Escharum's actual motivations were.

[orchid kettle]

like I always say in Halo 4, the game doesn't really define what "humanity" is, how Chief lacks it, of how he somehow has more

but I think Infinite handles it better because Chief is always being dismissive of the pilot and the weapon

[vagrant ocean]

Eh, I disagree. He never really felt human to me, just a human shaped machine. An emotional husk carrying the weight of the entire human race on his shoulders.

[orchid kettle]

Him trying to delete the Weapon is obviously portrayed as wrong and he suffers in the form of the Weapon being mad at him over it

[vagrant ocean]

Mad is an understatement

Off topic but I’m currently trapped by a 10 pound cat.

Someone save me

[orchid kettle]

Nah, I think caring about your AI girlfriend's impending mortality, desperately searching for a way to save her and protecting her from even your own side is very human

You can argue Chief isn't socialable

But that isn't being inhuman

Not to me, anyway

[empty bloom]

I think part of the reason the Banished being the new foil mid-arc is kinda... Bad? Is that while Cortana is doing something utterly inhuman for what is ultimately a very human reason, Atriox's motivation mostly seems to be "I got used as a weapon, this made me very angry, so now I'm basically monke Genghis Khan"

[orchid kettle]

Chief stuffing his emotions away when Tilman gets composed is like, I dunno, a common trait of toxic masculinity

but again it isn't inhuman

Being inhuman is not having those emotions at all

[vagrant ocean]

It’s why I always semi-jokingly dismiss the Banished as glorified space pirates

[orchid kettle]

Its having nothing to stuff and hide

[empty bloom]

A pretty common way modern writing handles being 'inhuman' or not is largely determined around issues toxic masculinity has. Halo just doesn't handle it in the specific gendered terms, and frankly, neither does God of War.

Or even Gears of War, for that matter, because 4 and 5 also criticized some elements of it.

[orchid kettle]

Like I know in that scene Cortana thinks Chief is just not feeling anything at all

but I never read that from the scene itself

when you have the character facing away from the camera while saying something somberly, its implying that they're not facing their true feelings

its not exactly nonchalant

[empty bloom]

I think it is more that Toxic Masculinity has major aspects of what people consider inhuman (Little care for others, warrantless anger/emotional repression being considered a strength, generally being either cold or incredibly judgmental, being self-centered), so you end up with a bundle of inherently negative and self-defeating traits in conjunction with a philosophy that is framed as gendered when there both isn't a call to do so-it's bad when a woman or enby does literally any of those things-and isn't really accurate to how a story is handling the writing, but thrown at it anyways.

But part of social gender discourse was, unfortunately and short-sightedly, framed through a perspective that is somewhat misogynistic while also being misandrist.

[orchid kettle]

Point is-- it never felt enough to me, the claim of Chief lacking humanity never felt properly substantiated

Bro is too nice, too caring, even if he's awkward

[empty bloom]

Aye. I think at best it could be construed that Chief's perspective was flawed and toxic, but the framing of said perspective meant he was covering for his very human flaws by pretending the flaws themselves were a robotic response.

[orchid kettle]

Bro needs to do something the audience actually thinks is uncomprosingly bad and create that dissonance between us and Chief

Like I read one Infinite review where a guy said he was disgusted with Chief when he tried to kill off his AI daughterfu

[empty bloom]

Ironically I'd say he had a more robotic response at the start of 5, which was coping with loss by simply running missions until either the system broke or he did.

[orchid kettle]

and all I can think in response is-- good

you're not supposed to be aligned with Chief in that moment

[empty bloom]

Yeah.

Hmn.

It's a shame that this sort of conjecture never really impacts the people who need to understand it, huh?

[vagrant ocean]

“Who does this Locke guy think he is trying to stop Chief from saving Cortana?!”

[empty bloom]

Chief and Locke were both trying to stop Cortana, in different ways and different methods, and the fact people somehow don't understand that while both were doomed to fail, Chief's was even more doomed because of who Cortana is, will always annoy me.

Like, Chief was trying to talk Halsey out of doing something, basically.

The same woman who had basically made it her living mission to crash out and do it anyways whenever someone told her "No" until something physically stopped her from doing it.

[orchid kettle]

This does play into what I said about Halo 4 never defining "humanity", since it leads to me needing to substitute my own understanding and clearly that's at odds with the writing

Funny thing is, I think the show did this particular point better, with that scene of Chief exploring the city and Kai dying her hair

Like you can draw that the show is saying that self-expression and forging connections with others is what makes us human, and that's as good a definition as anything else, really

While in 4 it can feel kinda harsh if the intention is that people with unhealthy coping mechanisms are inhuman

regardless if they mean well or not

[supple jasper]

Q: I am making a halo operation torpedo spin off book for my middle school ELA class. I have read ghosts of onyx, but i would like other suggestions. Also I was thinking about it and I think more of BETA company survived but where captured, tortured, and studied like fireteam crimson was. So could it be possible some of them are alive after the battle? And should I add that or just have them all die "honorably" like most III?

I came to the experts for this

[stoic hamlet]

Considering all Covenant forces were wiped out in the explosion, no one survived, the book is pretty clear on that. You’d need to retcon a lot of the actual operation to have any more survive.

But by doing so you make anyone getting away (E.G Tom and Lucy) basically impossible.

Personally if it were me, doing this for a class, I’d probably make a story of my own, using original an original world, rather than trying to make something from Halo.

[hearty whale]

Is there any lore explanation on how master chiefs armor changed from 5-infinite?

I get if its just an artstyle change, but i would like to know if they actually explained it.

[empty bloom]

They straight up made new armor.

Like, it's nearly a year, and at some point during that year GEN3 Mark VI started being made

[hearty whale]

Ohh. I forgot that 5 and infinite are 10 months apart. That makes sense.

[empty bloom]

Silly

[stoic hamlet]

Such a silly head.

[modest marsh]

more specifically, the waypoint chronicle From the Soil to the Stars and the Step Inside trailer cover this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkMY1hRAlfc

https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/halo-from-the-soil-to-the-stars

[lament karma]

Wait they are? Huh. I mean, I knew they were close together but dang

Less than a year

[carmine sleet]

Halo 5 is in 2558, Halo Infinite is in 2560

[vagrant ocean]

October of 2558 to be precise

Little over a year.

One year and seven months.

[carmine sleet]

Aye

[vagrant ocean]

Tbf, total dominance of the galaxy for only a year isn’t a small feat, so we should give props to the Created.

[carmine sleet]

And it's not like things would suddenly go back to how they were before either

[vagrant ocean]

Yeah. There’s still Created warlords everywhere, Sloan is even trying to keep the peace between them.

[loud fjord]

Hoping the assembly shows up again.

[heady peak]

Based on the halo lore around the Flood, when Master Chief first encountered the Flood, he basically went around killing the things left and right, but after Halo 3, and the UNSC had time to put together contingency plans in case the Flood ever returned. Including the protocols that restrict Spartans from engaging the Flood to prevent a infected Spartan. Does that mean Chief wouldn’t be sent to engage them?

[carmine sleet]

He's not a HAZMAT specialist so no. Which isn't to say he wouldn't be good at dealing with the Flood, it's just if there was suddenly an incident where the Flood was released from a location known to be containing the parasite, they'd likely call in HAZMAT teams first instead of assigning Chief to the operation to deal with it

[vagrant ocean]

There are Spartans that appear to be specifically trained for containment operations, with several MJÖLNIR variants and VISR systems designed specifically for that purpose. There’s also several OSTEO variants made for containment as well.

[empty bloom]

Chief primarily fought the flood as means to an end to complete a mission. If his mission does not involve the flood and they show up, the priority for him-and any other Spartan-is to prioritize what ultimately matters more; The mission, and the results of its completion or uncompletion, or survival.

Protocol is flexible in accordance with needs.

[vagrant ocean]

A prime example of armor variants designed for containment is the HIVEMIND armor, famously tested by Nina Korvan, which at least shows that the UNSC takes such measures EXTREMELY seriously.

[empty bloom]

The difference is that a Hazmat/FCU Spartan team is specifically meant to eradicate flood hives, as their actual mission. They may have objectives tangential to that task, but the ultimate mission is purging the enemy.

[vagrant ocean]

Correct, I believe Viper GEN3 is designed for that task.

[robust elk]

I would like some clarification regarding the flood forms ancient humanity encountered after using the forbidden space dust. Was it primarily domesticated fauna?

I'm trying to not mess this lore video up but want to have some fine details clarified

[vagrant ocean]

At first, mainly the Pheru, but eventually cults began to form where they consumed the infected beasts and then started consuming infected humans.

[robust elk]

Thank you!

[empty bloom]

Going off descriptions, the following armors are meant for combatting the flood:

HIVEMIND, STEELHEART, SERKET, TEMFOR, Possibly RASETSU, and VIPER (GEN3 only)

[vagrant ocean]

And then we have VISR setups made for it, and the morph scope.

[empty bloom]

Yep

GEN3 Viper is odd because they explicitly tweaked it to be an anti-flood piece of kit despite it not originally being meant for that.

[vagrant ocean]

And I don’t doubt that other CBRN/HAZMAT variants would be pressed into service for containment.

[heady peak]

I get what you’re saying, I was talking more about if the Chief was on board a UNSC ship, the ship gets a transmission that there’s a Flood outbreak nearby, would they send the Chief in, or would they hold him back?
Master Chief kinda reached this living legend hero status that he didn’t have before, so would the UNSC go out of their way to protect him?

[empty bloom]

They'd send an FCU.

Chief's job isn't to fight flood, it's the FCU's and nuke-deploying second-step teams if the FCU fails' job.

[heady peak]

Ok

[empty bloom]

Chief's job is whatever mission it is. That said, if he was on the same ship as the FCU, I wager he'd likely add Blue Team on as extra backup to that FCU, not because he doubts the FCU's capabilities-FCU's are considered elite even by the standards of Spartans-But because having a full team of extra veteran Spartans is always going to help, and a Flood breakout is a big deal.

[last anchor]

Something tells me the FCU wouldnt say no

[heady peak]

Seeing as I’m on the topic, I wonder how common Flood outbreaks are, I know they rare compared to most enemy encounters, but I wonder what the majority of Flood engagements are post Covenant war

[last anchor]

Common enough to require FCU forces as active units.
Not common enough to be a threat.

Biggest breach currently that we know of was the UNSC Saturn incident.

And the outbreak on the Ark

[carmine sleet]

I'd imagine they'd want to make sure Blue Team has gone through at least some basics on what to do if things go wrong before they deploy though

[last anchor]

Presumably Chief can instruct them on that.
Assuming he didn't instantly begin cross-training them when he took command again following TN72H

[empty bloom]

After everything, the thing that ends up taking Kelly/Linda/Fred out is getting infected. What a shame.

[heady peak]

Knowing that Flood combat forms are a lot stronger then the creatures they infected are, that would mean infected Spartans would be crazy strong. Blue team vs infected Spartans would be nuts

[carmine sleet]

Knowing Linda, she'd somehow manage to find a way to survive

[last anchor]

(Kelly casually outrunning a horde of infection forms)

[heady peak]

Chief brings Flood zombie Linda to Halsey. Chief: “Uhh, you’re a doctor right?” Halsey: 🤦‍♂️

[carmine sleet]

No, I'm talking like the scene in the third Indiana Jones film when they think his dad is dead in the jeep explosion and he walks up behind them as if nothing bad had happened

[empty bloom]

Linda casually sipping a soda

"Damn that looks bad"

[carmine sleet]

She should be giving them an archaic gesture for being too slow

[stoic hamlet]

They’re also more brittle and easy to destroy.

The danger of the flood is numbers and surprise, but until they get to the proper Intelligent stage, they’re not that dangerous, comparatively.

[worn coral]

Do you guys want the list of what sangheili words mean

[supple jasper]

could I just make them all die while also including piece's of teamfoxtrots point of view? I also just read the wiki so the survivors would die from the heatwave anyways. But your right I should probably not do a fanfic on halo.

[fast heron]

Always wondered, since a flood form can take memories for the gravemind, do they still take memories if the bodies are dead?

[stoic hamlet]

If there’s no brain then no.

The infected person has to be alive.

We see this in The Mona Lisa.

And Halo CE.

[fast heron]

Ok thank you, I am possibly having a mini hyperfixation about the flood, and been wondering about that for a while now

[fast heron]

I gotta watch that

[stoic hamlet]

It doesn’t get shown in the motion comic. Only in the book.

[fast heron]

Is that why they didn’t control their bodies?

[stoic hamlet]

The motion comics (Headhunters, Mona Lisa, ahd Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian) are all abridged versions of short stories. IMO they’re a poor substitute for the actual written text.

[fast heron]

Ah, I see lol

[odd bloom]

so how come the scorpion has the... nasty looking turret mechanism on it lmao the disgusting semi-oscillating turret

[stoic hamlet]

What part of it specifically are you referring to?

[odd bloom]

like the part that tilts up and down with the barrel

it gave the turret an insanely massive no-armor neck for no reason

the turret could be half as tall or more and still have more or less the same top half

[stoic hamlet]

It’s for elevation.

Though not all Scorpions have it. The M820 is much lower to the chassis.

[modest marsh]

Scorpion is designed the way it is so that it controls similarly to the player

Camera look controls where it shoots

Therefore, it has absurdly high elevation and low depression

That’s why you can shoot aircraft out of the air with it

[fading flume]

I personally wonder if it becomes something more than a simple assault form. With access to all those augments, could it become some sort of key-mind.

[empty bloom]

From how the newer flood stories make it sound, they make Spartans into pure forms inside the suit by filling the suits with biomass to the point of bursting open.

[vagrant ocean]

Hence the cracked armor and pustules.

[minor sky]

Really creepy way to go out

[stoic hamlet]

Well, the one example we have they were already dead, so…

[vagrant ocean]

Thank you Gallows protocol.

[empty bloom]

The Spartan likely had enough time to feel something punch into their suit and barely enough to realize what that meant.

[vagrant ocean]

Keep in mind Site 22 was the only time we heard of an infected Spartan, I have a feeling Spartan teams have encountered the Flood during the exploration of the Halo Array, and dealt with the infestation accordingly.

Without incident

[empty bloom]

The real question is how they figured infected Spartans would act. Site 22 being the only site is doubtful... But there is a lot of missing IIIG's.

[vagrant ocean]

I wouldn’t say they’re missing. The IIIGs were pretty much entirely folded into the Spartan branch, and almost all stories that involve the Spartan branch primarily focus on either new characters or old ones that were augmented, so it could just be that the fate of Gamma (and maybe Delta) Company hasn’t been explored in depth yet. I have a feeling it more so has to do with the various war games simulations we see in games like H4 and H2A, where they might have AI predict how they might act using available data on combat forms. Could there have been another incident? Maybe, but I doubt there were enough to explain hundreds of Spartans going missing.

[stoic hamlet]

Space is big, also.

Like, I know it’s a meme, but genuinely it’s massive.

Gamma could be hitting factory worlds and frolicking in the JOZ, or testing armour far from the “frontline”, with no reason to ever be discussed.

[vagrant ocean]

Exactly

“How can they test all these armor variants?” Why not use the 300+ Gammas that got folded into the Spartan branch?

[wispy pewter]

maybe some were on Laconia when it blew up

[still heron]

The ascension story does reveal that the infected Spartan does end up becoming part of a soon to be Gravemind but it'll require a ton of biomass (planet wide infestation) to take it to Keymind levels from the Forerunner-Flood War.

[versed salmon]

Well apparently the planet is facing imminent destruction from a star/solar flare of some kind, so it might not get to that point. But then they were looking for "Anchor. Wheel. Dust", so who knows if they'll somehow find a way out,

[vagrant ocean]

Doubt it. If the star is going Nova or something similar it’ll fry all electronics

Wait

Hold the bloody phone.

The Voyager records are on Atropos?!

Btw hopefully there’s no way off that rock

[dusty pilot]

tbh i think the UNSC should make the Spirit of Fire type ship a Super Carrier sized vessel like the Long Night of Solace, make it so it can launch like 10 Infinity Class ships like a Infinity would launch its 10 frigates, it would be a russian nesting doll thing where the Spirit of Fire launches its Infinity Carriers into Carrier Strike Groups, then the Infinity Carriers launch their small frigate flotillas [the Spirit of Fire would launch a few dozen destroyers from its other hangers as destroyer squadrons] and the fleet gets backed up by a Cruiser Division of 4-5 Autumn Class Cruisers. the Frigates then launch their pelicans [lol] and the pelicans then launch ODST Pods that have Spartans in them and the spartans each launch a drone from themselves!

[wispy pewter]

I think the UNSC should build more ships in general

[orchid kettle]

I think the UNSC is weirdly good at building ships

home fleet just gets destroyed every other week

[stoic hamlet]

From Warfleet, we know most of the ships built near the end of the war weren’t really ships, in the same way they’d be at the beginning.

Corners were cut to give paper fleets the numbers they needed, but those ships would have parts removed or crew comforts discarded or Slipspace drives taken off their hulls to shave costs and time. The Halberd, for example, is mentioned as being this by the late war.

[orchid kettle]

Another 500 stridents

[wispy pewter]

I guess an easier way is to just slap a Infinity Mac on existing ships. Because thats waht they did in empty throne

[empty bloom]

Kinda wonder how well the Battletech design concept of "motherships" that hold onto a large assault dropship fleet would work out in Halo.

Because in Battletech a Potemkin-Class Warship can hold like 20+ dropships that function as anything from corvettes to frigates to logistics haulers.

[dusk jetty]

Speculating something similar to what we see from infinity with the frigates deployed bottom first

[stoic hamlet]

The UNSC has had that for decades.

The Punic carries Frigates underslung, and that’s been a ship of the line (with multiple built) since the 2490’s.

[celest sky]

just nothing but Paris class and they'd have wom

[thorn osprey]

I think the reason we haven't seen much of the IIIGs is that there isn't really much storytelling to do with them.

Alpha and Beta company existed as tragedies (and also to inflate spartan numbers for more characters) and Gamma ended up as the hope core version of the IIIs. Even though they didn't get to take their revenge against the Covenant, they survived for the most part.

Additionally, Kammyshep made a video about this, the Gammas have a character trait that is kinda overplayed at this point.

Anytime you see a gamma in a story, you already know that they are gonna be away from their medication for awhile and they'll go coo coo for coco puffs.

[stoic hamlet]

Tbf, that’s less because there’s not much to do with them, and more that authors just aren’t interested in exploring them.

There’s a lot of potential with preteens who “missed their chance” in terms of the war.

A more intimate look at the Spartan program, and the people it affects.

I also don’t think Kammy’s correct there.

Of the (to date) 6 stories Gammas have appeared in, they’ve only gone off their smoothers twice, and only one of them is actually understandable (the other one is really contrived).

If anything, the lore on the smoothers makes the odds of them going off them are less likely than them just up and running out of ammunition.

People also blow it vastly out of proportion.

[stoic hamlet]

But then that’s true of all fandoms who get their info second hand, or those who need to summarize.

[odd bloom]

like... LOOKING at the infected... dawg a flood infected spartan should not be that scary

look at him he's physically ruined

how would the flood improve on that as it mangles and gores your flesh and mutates you to where you dont fit right in the armor you were in

your suit running low on power joints squeaking dry of grease and full of dirt and biomass trundling along way slower than a normal spartan could ever move

[empty bloom]

Well, going off what we know from infected Spartan predictions (Halo 4 Infection mode is at least partially canon, and presumably the most accurate part is the relative reckless speed of the infected Spartans), they're likely faster and stronger than the average Spartan.

[odd bloom]

how tho

[empty bloom]

The flood has always forced the most out of its luckless prey.

[odd bloom]

have bioweapons been tried on the flood?

[empty bloom]

Bioweapon on an ultimate bioweapon that has been known to make its own infectious neurotoxins.

If it worked I doubt it'd work very well or very long.

[odd bloom]

self replicating nanomachines that eat and destroy flood biomass

idk

[empty bloom]

The flood basically is a self-replicating nanomachine.

[odd bloom]

sorta yeah

[modest marsh]

The flood basically becomes synonymous with the armor

Several of the armor descriptions make it clear that the structures protruding out of the suit itself are augmenting it

[odd bloom]

so why cant it copy what its gleamed from the spartan and make all its biomass monsters as powerful as that or more

[coarse hamlet]

The floods also magically tumorous. It can grow a ton of muscle, digest that muscle when it breaks it and grow even more in biologically disrespectful ways

[modest marsh]

Presumably it can? But some things are going to be more efficiently done through technology in the short term

We haven’t seen what a “peak” pure form looks like

The abominations seen in HW2 at least are physically more powerful than brutes despite being a fraction the size

[odd bloom]

it seems rather strange how its infection works tho

like the fact MC could get stabbed by one without being immediately screwed

youd think every flood forms body is made of flood spores

so even the slightest contact and you are doomed

just a touch

[modest marsh]

So this is an early lore weirdness thing where simply being exposed to the biological material would not result in mutation

More recent fiction has made it clearer that the flood can asymptomatically infect individuals before revealing itself later on, which is what happened to truth in halo 3

As far as what happened with Chief, Cortana electrocuted him with enough voltage to cause the infector to violently explode, which may have cauterized the open wound in the process

[empty bloom]

Chief also slapped on a medical patch right after the injury. Between his suit systems administering sealants and other aids and the patch, as well as his own enhanced biology, any remaining cells could've actually lost the fight in his body if any got anywhere.

[modest marsh]

Yeah, theres nothing that says that the immune system is entirely helpless against flood matter, even if it it’s incredibly lopsided

[empty bloom]

I imagine a lot of it is dependent on how long you were exposed to it with it in your bloodstream.

Like, pop a flood pod and get a nice big lungful? SOL, pal.

[coarse hamlet]

Who would win
1 ancient evil parasite or 20 different scrapings of molds injected into your bloodstream simultaneously

[wispy pewter]

The parasite that made the forerunners scared

[coarse hamlet]

The more i learn of the forerunners the less impressed by the flood i am

[empty bloom]

Get shot by flood contaminant-infected MA40 bullets? Sorry, buddy.
Get stabbed for less than a second by a pod infector before it gets cauterized away by a funny zap and a bunch of meds? Eh, guess you'll probs be okay. Hopefully Cortana triple scans your blood.

[odd bloom]

where was he stabbed anyways

[empty bloom]

Nape of the neck.

[odd bloom]

honestly i think he should have just been stabbed in a limb and been forced to cut that limb off

and get a robot one

[empty bloom]

Well, it happened during the events of Halo CE.

So.

You kinda had like, the rest of the level to worry about.

[odd bloom]

its crazy its in that early tbh when i was younger i was on playstation so i only had background knowledge on halo and i thought the flood only came into the story later lol

they're such a weird curveball to the story

like you have the humans and covenant and then these nasty mfs waltz in

[wispy pewter]

They built massive super weapons just for the parasite

[modest marsh]

It was unclear in the early fiction of Halo just how human vs cybernetic Spartans were intended to be, because the original concept was more akin to a Robocop style guy that wasnt even qualifiable as a human

[empty bloom]

Also, blood circulates out of a limb pretty fast, as in, it's out of the injured limb in less than 20 seconds on average.

[odd bloom]

i still think nanomachines specifically coded to kill flood spores and eachother if hijacked by logic plague would work

or maybe give them an inbuilt self destruct

so they will self pop if they try hijacking them

[empty bloom]

So like, you'd have to instantly react to the psychological pressure of immediate limb severance to even stand a chance and even then it likely won't work.

[odd bloom]

surely they cant hijack millions of seperate machines in the same moment no?

[empty bloom]

That isn't how the logic plague works.

[modest marsh]

Up until like the last year of development, Chief had a straight up synthetic robot voice, which was preserved in the Japanese version of the game

[empty bloom]

The logic plague is effectively a cognitohazard in the form of a really damn good argument.

At least as I understand it.

Combined with massive amounts of brainwashing.

[modest marsh]

TFOR walked this back a bit but there’s still a lingering notion of him being more cyborg than human as late as halo 3 with the bestiarum treating him as a separate species

[empty bloom]

TBF, I think Spartans in general are Human+ candidates.

After augs anyways.

[modest marsh]

Yeah I’m just saying they were intended to be even less human than what the contemporaneous lore suggests

[empty bloom]

Aye

I find it funny how the first time someone specifically says another (human) character in Halo 'just isn't human', it isn't actually about a Spartan.

It's about some random Marine with PTSD.

[odd bloom]

Oni is just trash at bio-engineering

by sci fi standards at least

[empty bloom]

By sci fi standards is... Whatever?

Halo treats itself as taking itself relatively seriously compared to most sci-fi.

[vagrant ocean]

Aye

[odd bloom]

idk i just mean like by 2500s and you want super soldiers and you're willing to be unethical about it

clone up some genetically enhanced bois who are naturally roided out and such

[vagrant ocean]

Most franchises that involve augmented humans treat them as basically a different species

[empty bloom]

So here's the thing about ethics. They don't just exist to make you feel bad about breaking them.

Ethics exist so that whatever research you get is accurate and effective at communicating a result.

It's why the Stanford Prison Experiment taught psychological science nothing useful aside from "This is a bad way to do science".

[modest marsh]

To be clear the reason why the Spartan program is the way that it is is because essentially at the dawn of the earliest super soldier experiments, it was deemed super illegal to do that because (implicitly, technically not hard fact) the space fascist ethno supremacists we’re trying to do exactly that

They also lost the war which isn’t a ringing endorsement

[wispy pewter]

“Ethics” with ONI together who is basically the all the three letter organisations in the real world combined

[odd bloom]

ethno supermacists with genetic augmentation tech is a scary thought indeed because with just a few tweaks they can back up everything they say about being superior by actually enhancing themselves to be lmao uh oh

thats how you get apocalypse scenario

like uhh self reproducing transhumans who dont need the originals

[empty bloom]

The thing with supremacists is that they are very frequently too damned stupid to actually be useful.

[modest marsh]

Yeah so you can understand why there’s a huge cultural aversion given that this is potentially one of the reasons that the UNSC was created in the first place

Like there’s an irony to that of course

[odd bloom]

yup

[modest marsh]

Since, yeah, they’re essentially making their own monsters in the form of Spartans

[empty bloom]

Like that's what makes you a Supremacist. Being too damned stupid to realize that being a Supremacist is just shooting yourself in the foot. A certain group of science-and-black-magic loving Fascists in the 20th century learned that the hard way.

[odd bloom]

how often do you see them actually care about their 'superior' group lol

they only say that because they dont like others

[vagrant ocean]

Hence the passage of the UN Mortal Dictata in 2165.

[modest marsh]

Spartans are weirdly “ethical” in the grand scheme of things, there are clear guardrails and boundaries in place in spite of the unconscionable measures taken by all parties involved

[vagrant ocean]

Yep

[modest marsh]

Part of that may be because of out of universe sanitization

[empty bloom]

Plus, they also had some idea the science would work because of more ethical experiments done before the II program.

[vagrant ocean]

Hell, even by scifi standards they’re pretty ethical for a super-soldier program.

[empty bloom]

They weren't just stabbing around in the dark to do it for the hell of it, they had some degree of a plan and specific chemicals that still sometimes worked with humans in mind.

[modest marsh]

I do think the characters in setting genuinely believe what they’re doing is altruistic and even Halsey is shown to be remorseful which is more than what you can say about your average mad scientist character

[wispy pewter]

UNSC doesn’t seem to operate on the orders of the civilian government

[modest marsh]

They have emergency powers

[empty bloom]

I mean, I still maintain that Halsey's guilt was part of what manifested in post-death Cortana in 5.

As Cortana was before Halsey forgave herself to any real degree about the II program.

[vagrant ocean]

Well, that’s because the UNSC had de facto control over the UEG and CAA/CMA for the entirety of the war.

[vagrant ocean]

People seem to forget that the Spartan-II program (or Phase Three of ORION) builds on 200 years of research into augmenting humans.

[wispy pewter]

Wonder if they ever relinquished this after the war

[empty bloom]

Yeah.

I once had a guy get SUPER pissed at me about IVs making sense timeline wise as a Supersoldier program that popped up the same year/year after the IIIG program graduated.

[modest marsh]

Nominally, yes, the problem is the transition of power isn’t so clean

Especially when ONI still has so many active measures in place so that humanity overall maintains political dominance

[vagrant ocean]

It did. Lord Terrance Hood handed over power almost immediately after the cessation of hostilities.

[modest marsh]

Or rather, specifically the UEG-affiliated powers

[vagrant ocean]

The issue is that ONI is basically a shadow government.

[empty bloom]

And his insistence was mostly based around there "not being enough time to test on adult subjects", which kinda forgets that they had been making Spartan IIs and IIIs for over three-four decades at that point.

And that the Orions existed.

And whatever undisclosed freakshows ONI had running around too.

[wispy pewter]

Ah

[vagrant ocean]

And that they were already testing the IV augments by 2548.

[vagrant ocean]

Javelin is still such a mystery

[wispy pewter]

Why didn’t they just continue the Spartan III program. There doesn’t seem to be much difference between the IVs and IIIs

[empty bloom]

Because you don't kidnap kids.

And coercing orphans to fight for you is still kidnapping kids.

Like, the UNSC, and Kurt by proxy, definitionally engaged in child trafficking.

[vagrant ocean]

Well the big difference was that the mass produced IVs weren’t children. The kids in the Battle Born series did become IVs, but they were still kids.

[wispy pewter]

I mean I’m pretty sure the chemical augmentations can work on adults right

[empty bloom]

If I ever did a Halo lore channel I'd call Kurt-051 a human trafficker a lot.

Just because it's both true and would likely make someone mad.

[vagrant ocean]

They do, hence the large number of IVs in existence.

[empty bloom]

You mean the wildly even more unethical and dubiously useful brain-rotting chemical augments?

[vagrant ocean]

Oh the Gamma augments?

[empty bloom]

That make IIIG's unsustainable long-term?

[vagrant ocean]

Hell, we don’t even know if Delta Company was even recruited.

[wispy pewter]

They can skip that

[vagrant ocean]

Debriefing those lunatics is gonna be an issue

[empty bloom]

For all intents and purposes IVs are built for the long war. Highly varied skill sets beyond even normal IIs and IIIs, still sociable with normal humans, less trauma baggage from being a kid forced into war. Just good-old-fashioned adult crazies.

[vagrant ocean]

Yup

[empty bloom]

By comparison IIs and IIIs were both proofs of concept.

[vagrant ocean]

And many are already semi-famous war heroes which helps with the propaganda war.

[wispy pewter]

I don’t think they were forced into war. War came to them

[vagrant ocean]

The MBT-70 and XM803 to the IVs Abrams.

[empty bloom]

Uh, no, IIs and IIIs were literally forced into war lmao

[vagrant ocean]

The IIs and IIIs were specifically made to fight.

[empty bloom]

IIIs are kids, they had zero idea what they were sequestered away for until they were kicked out of a dropship.

[vagrant ocean]

They were just approached by some ONI suit and asked “Wanna get some payback?”

[wispy pewter]

Yes

[vagrant ocean]

The IVs are the culmination of 200+ years of ethical and unethical experimentation, and even then improvements can and need to be made.

[wispy pewter]

They tried making an “armourless” Spartan which makes 0 sense

End up making some crazy woman who tried taking over the Infinity and joined the Banished

[modest marsh]

That’s a bit of a misrepresentation

They wanted to get Mjolnir performance out a of a Spartan without Mjolnir, which technically gammas were already approaching

Zane, if deployed, likely would’ve been given SPI/Mirage

[vagrant ocean]

Ilsa was part of a program to reduce or eliminate the need for MJÖLNIR, she’d still be given a semi-powered suit such as SPI or ORCUS.

[modest marsh]

I do not like the idea she was sparring evenly with Palmer but in Palmer’s defense, that was her first time wearing Mjolnir

[vagrant ocean]

But her being in MJÖLNIR right now makes her an even bigger threat

[empty bloom]

Which isn't even consenting! Because, y'know, literally kids! When I was twelve I wanted to go to war too, and that's because 12 year old kids are stupid!

[wispy pewter]

Definitely works because she was throwing around the IVs without an armor

[empty bloom]

Eh, a Spartan in MJOLNIR is heavy, but not too heavy to be tossed around. I'd actually wager the average unarmored IV could pick up another IV in armor just fine.

I mean they certainly wouldn't be happy about it but

[vagrant ocean]

12 year olds are some of the dumbest creatures on this planet next to horses and koalas.

[modest marsh]

I don’t think Zane actually picks up Palmer, but she does punch her with such force that it knocks her off her feet and removes her helmet

[empty bloom]

This is why we have helmet latches.

[modest marsh]

Helmets getting knocked off at all is…strange

[wispy pewter]

14 year olds faked their age back in WW2 btw

[empty bloom]

It annoyed me when it happened to that guy in the fall of AJJAMS.

[empty bloom]

And they were stupid to do it.

[modest marsh]

They would appear to be designed such that anything but an intentional release would decapitate the person inside

[empty bloom]

It's done for dramatic effect but like

Drama and logic don't uh

They don't jive

They don't boogey

Not when it comes to pressure seals

[modest marsh]

I just headcanon the academy Spartan to be in either Rakshasa or mirage

[wispy pewter]

her bones must be stronger than titanium beause wth an armored spartan is like 300 kilograms

someone do the maths

[modest marsh]

The numbers tend to skew much higher than that actually

[empty bloom]

I headcanon that the guy who died is our player character.

[wispy pewter]

how much fist power you need to punch 300 kilograms across 20 meters

[modest marsh]

Horvath is stated to be 600kg in armor I believe

Granted, he’s huge for a IV

[vagrant ocean]

Nah, my boiz are fine. Well, one is missing an arm.

[empty bloom]

Yeah. I don't think an unarmored IV is gonna throw Horvath, but I do think Vale could pick him up over her shoulders and fireman carry him if she was out of armor and he was clad in his.

[wispy pewter]

the comic ends with her in the vacuum of space what even happened after that

[vagrant ocean]

She got those Spartan-II candidate genes

[empty bloom]

I'm more just using Vale as a throw-out example, I think literally any Spartan could.

[modest marsh]

NCA recovered her unconscious body and they resuscitated her, similar to what happened to James

[empty bloom]

Well, any II, III, or IV.

[wispy pewter]

the fact that she can survive in the vacuum without armor? wtf

[modest marsh]

To be clear I think most of what’s wrong with Zane is her comic appearance makes her look like a conventionally attractive but otherwise normal woman when she should look like a cybernetic freak straight out of cyberpunk

[empty bloom]

Like, they make it sound like Kovan's armor was too heavy to move with her in it in Rubicon Protocol but that was actually just the pressure systems in her suit immobilizing her, not the actual weight of the armor.

[wispy pewter]

she hulk

[modest marsh]

She has subdermal armor for instance

[empty bloom]

Got them V-issue gorilla arms.

[modest marsh]

That would partly account for that

[vagrant ocean]

Most of the damage done to her is psychological,

[vagrant ocean]

Monke

[empty bloom]

I really prefer the lightweight Gorilla arms skinnier folks get in the Cyberpunk canon. They just look neat.

Some scrawny, tiny little dude, and he or she or they can punch out your skull like Chief getting the hall pass to the Autumn from Keyes.

[modest marsh]

The biggest reason I can think of as to why they would even bother to make her look “normal” is because they planned to use their experimental batch of Spartans as deep cover infiltrators rather than commandos or shock troops like Spartans are typically used for

Ie terminator

[empty bloom]

I mean, it makes sense, except for her still standing like 7' tall.

[vagrant ocean]

Most likely.

[empty bloom]

I do like how they kinda walked back how 'strong' she was in the Waypoint articles though. Stronger than a normal Spartan of any stripe but not quite MJOLNIR-matching.

[modest marsh]

That is to say, if she does have a more recent depiction I’d want her to look like the “damaged” T-800 with a metal skull underneath a fake layer of skin

[empty bloom]

Explains why she decided to steal some poor dead schmuck's armor.

[stoic hamlet]

I liked that as well.

[vagrant ocean]

Anyways, Ilsa is a UNIT. Near-MJÖLNIR performance out of armor coupled with GEN3 is Adam Smasher territory.

[wispy pewter]

is she Mac round proof

[vagrant ocean]

Apologies for delayed responses, I’m watching a guy play with a huge pistol

Kentucky Ballistics got a new gun

A 4 bore pistol.

I just imagined a bunch of colonists fighting Covvies using blackpowder weapons and it sounds so hype

[stoic hamlet]

Have you read Empty Throne?

[vagrant ocean]

Not yet, does that occur? Are people using muskets and lever guns against aliens?

[wispy pewter]

farmers using cyclopses to fight brutes

[vagrant ocean]

Well there is precedent for that.

I just imagined John Brown using a Sharps rifle to blow open a Jackal’s skull

[wispy pewter]

it happened in empty throne

all the farmers died of course

[vagrant ocean]

It happened on Etran Harborage. And the Ark.

[wispy pewter]

the cyclopse needs a huge machine gun like in Avatar

[vagrant ocean]

The one in HW2 has an auto cannon.

[modest marsh]

Apparently most Spartan IIs are

[wispy pewter]

Mac and Cheese probably

[modest marsh]

I’m referencing the fact that most members of beta red team, 5 out of the 6, survived the mac blast that was previously implied to have killed all or at least most of them

[wispy pewter]

Plot armor